The Summer Shred: Your Beach-Body Program!

The Summer Shred: Your Beach-Body Program!

Summer's coming, and it's time to lose body fat, get in shape and look good. Here's a supplement, diet and training plan that can help you do just that.

Summer is coming, and it's time to lose body fat, get in shape and look good. Here's a plan that can help you do just that.

Diet

Unless you have a lot of fat to lose, I'm not going to suggest a huge change in eating habits (such as a big calorie drop). I am going to suggest you eat clean, and follow a high protein (lean meats, poultry, fish and low fat dairy products), moderate carb (rice, oatmeal, potatoes, whole grains, lettuce, carrots, cucumbers and any other veggies you like) and low fat diet (limit fat intake to what's naturally occurring in the foods you eat and a small amount of almonds or similar nut 3 times a week).

Eat most of your carbs in the morning and afternoon. Eat fibrous carbs, like salads, at night. Always mix your carbs with protein. Don't forget to have a post workout drink of fast carbs and protein and don't forget to start your day with a small protein shake (before you do anything).

Your last meal of the day should also be a small protein shake to help prevent muscle breakdown while you sleep. Eat 5-6 times a day, but remember to eat sensible portions, eat until you are almost full.

If you want this to work, there can be no pigging out, no junk food binges. If you have a lot of fat to lose, I suggest a reduction of calories along with the tips given above.

I would reduce calories by 250 a week, monitor your results after two weeks, then reduce another 250 per week if need be. But this type of thing must be reasonable, you don't want to reduce so low you're starving.

You want to increase your activity levels to limit calorie reduction. I would not go below 12 calories per pound of body weight, and I would work down to this in 250 calorie increments.

Supplements

Definitely keep a food log and a workout log, monitor everything you eat, break it down into calorie, protein, carb and fat proportions and total it at the end of the day.

Training

In your workout log, record your cardio workouts as well as your weight workouts. For cardio, I recommend recording time spent doing the exercise, speed and calories burned.

You will want your cardio, depending on your metabolism, to go 30-45 minutes 4-5 times a week in the morning on an empty stomach. If that's not possible, do it before eating your big evening meal. I suggest a slower speed. For example, if you're on a treadmill, average between 2.8 and 3.3 mph.

Depending on your recovery ability, you may want to reduce your leg work - I find when I do heavy leg work properly, I'm too sore to do a lot of cardio.

You'll be doing the 8 sets of 8 reps approach, one exercise per body part, limit rest between sets to 20 seconds or less. I would suggest basic exercises. I would include calf work and I would increase the reps to at least 15.

Remember, do abs after every workout, I would suggest higher reps, say, 20-25 reps. Use heavy weights on all your exercises, the 8 reps should be near impossible to complete.

This workout is designed to burn a lot of calories and help you burn body fat. Doing basic exercises will allow you to maintain muscle mass as well as burn more calories than isolation movements.

So you can see, between the cardio and the weight lifting, you will be burning a lot of calories and promoting a lot of fat loss. The sheer amount of work involved is one reason I'm not suggesting huge calorie drops (unless you have a lot to lose).

Even though this routine advocates one exercise per body part for 8 sets, you can adjust it to include two exercises per body part as long as the pace and set/rep scheme doesn't change. You should alleviate boredom in both routines by switching up the exercises. Here's an example routine with two exercises per body part:

Remember, even though this routine sounds basic and somewhat easy, you are supposed to be moving at a fast pace - going as low as 10-15 seconds rest between sets. It's as much a aerobic workout as anything.

Conclusion

You'll want to measure and weigh yourself at the start of this, and do so every week. You'll have to make adjustments if you are not losing fat: more cardio, and/or less calories.

Any adjustments you make should be gradual - drop calories and increase cardio in increments, 250 calories a day as suggested above and 10 more minutes of cardio per session.

This will be necessary if you have an extremely slow metabolism. Follow these tips and watch it take off the fat like a blowtorch.